Kukla's Korner Hockey

For Canadiens fans frustrated by the stultifyingly dull personal and professional stylings of Jacques Martin, losing Boucher to the Tampa Bay Lightning was the biggest woulda-coulda-shoulda scenario of the 2010-2011 NHL season.

As a rookie head coach with Tampa Bay, the former coach of the Canadiens’ AHL franchise in Hamilton took the Lightning to within a whisker of the Stanley Cup final.

Along the way, Boucher demonstrated that he’s a master motivator, manipulator and innovator. He managed to keep his best players defensively responsible without sacrificing offence, and he did it all without the benefit of being able to rely on a legitimate number one goaltender.

Above and beyond his professional credentials, Boucher is a dynamic personality who would be a star in this town, which embraces its hockey stars like no other city in the world. In a culture and a sport that both cater to emotion, the passionate and animated Boucher is a much more natural fit than the hopelessly inscrutable Martin.